Redskins, Vick Jerseys and WWE

Campbell, McIntosh, Sellers, in the pit.

Let's take a break from the Vick soap opera to report on some real sports: pro wrestling.

So I had never been to an WWE event before last night. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. But if someone had told me, "expect the FedEx Field parking lot," that would have been a pretty accurate description. I'm no demographer, but the age and gender and racial breakdown seemed pretty darn FedEx Field like to me.

As did the jerseys, frankly. There were Cooley shirts everywhere. Sean Taylors, too. And Vicks, of course. Because how better to celebrate his reinstatement day than to wear your Vick to a WWE event in downtown D.C.

What else? A zillion shirts about John Cena not being able to feel his face. Virtually no Wizards gear. A few Ovechkin t-shirts. And a few Redskins: Mike Sellers, Jason Campbell (in Nats hat), Rocky McIntosh and Stephon Heyer, all sitting together ringside in the second row. I asked Sellers if he was going to be heckling the wrestlers; "of course," he said. They all showed up on the big screen at some point, with McIntosh appearing to try a headlock on Sellers.

The sports banter started immediately, when Shaq entered the ring as guest host, to boos, while ripping up a sign that said "Hail King Kobe." Jerry Lawler called him without a doubt the most dominant NBA player of all time. More boos.

"First of all, my new teammate LeBron James told me to tell y'all hello," said Shaq, a few hours after claiming he didn't know the Wiz and Cavs were rivals. "Booooooooooooooo," said the fans.

I guess because of Shaq's presence, they kept coming back to the hoops; one Diva wore a cut-off Caron Butler jersey as her wrestling top. But this was a straight-up NFL crowd, with random NFL jerseys (Al Toon!) everywhere you looked.

Eventually, I got tired and went home. And then some wrestler claiming to be from Cleveland named The Miz came up on stage and insulted the Wizards. But it really wasn't a Wizards crowd. In the background of virtually every TV shot, you could see Cooley jerseys, often accompanied by camo visors. When he insulted the Redskins, then the boos really came down. Know your audience, WWE.

sad to say i know this, but the Miz used to be one of the roommates from MTV's Real World. the second New York season.. then he did about a million of those rw/rr challenge-duel shows. that's when he started getting into wrestling.
okay, back to your normally scheduled programming ;p